Ken Douglas - Gecko

“ So we’re going to treat Monday like a suspect?”

“ We’re going to treat everybody like a suspect.” Washington opened his eyes. “The trail to our killer starts at Monday’s. I feel it and I’m usually right about these things.”

“ Okay, boss, if you say the trail starts at Monday’s, it starts at Monday’s.”

Washington smiled. Before his trouble his comrades regarded him as nothing short of brilliant. They called him the department’s Canadian Mountie, a nickname he loved, because like the mythical mountie, he always got his man.

Ten minutes later they turned off of Anaheim onto El Jardin.

“ Wow, nice area.” Washington whistled and seconds later he whistled again. “And a nice house. You know, Walker, you could afford a place like this if you wanted.”

“ Actually I live about two blocks from here.”

“ Really? Nice house? Like this?”

“ Yeah.”

“ Sometimes I forget about all your money.”

“ I try not to let it get in the way.”

“ I’ll try to keep it out of the way too.” Washington laughed.

“ How you want to do this?”

“ Pull up in the driveway like we belong,” Washington said and Walker obeyed, turning his car into the circular driveway, bringing it to a stop by the front door.

“ Now what?”

“ We go inside and have a look.” Washington fished into his jacket pocket, withdrew a set of keys. He turned to Walker, raised them above his head with his left hand and jiggled them.

“ You stole his keys?

“ A good scout is always prepared.”

“ You don’t mean we’re going to enter the premises?”

“ I do.”

“ Without a warrant?”

“ I thought you wanted to move up and get out of the uniform, maybe even make Homicide?”

“ I’m not going to this way. Christ, we could wind up in jail if we get caught.”

“ Highly unlikely.”

“ That we’ll get caught?”

“ That we would wind up in jail. A slap on the wrists, maybe, but jail? I don’t think so.”

“ I don’t feel right about this.”

“ You want to wait in the car?”

“ No, I’m with you.”

“ Because if you want to wait, I won’t mind. I’ll understand.”

“ I said, I’m with you.”

“ It’s okay, you know, if you don’t go in.”

“ I said I was with you and if we don’t do something pretty damn quick, someone is going to get the wrong idea about us. They have a neighborhood watch here.”

“ Bad guys don’t usually drive right up to the front door in a spanking new Mercedes.”

“ Some of these old gals got nothing better to do than to wait by the telephone with their gnarled fingers ready to dial 911. If we’re going to go in, let’s get it over with.”

“ Come on, Tonto.” Washington opened the passenger door, slid out of the car. “It’s starting to get dark and I’d like to be home in time for the evening news.”

Walker jumped out of the car, followed Washington to the porch. Washington rang the bell.

“ No answer. Looks like nobody’s home.” He tried one of the keys. It didn’t work. “Wrong key, must be to the condo in Huntington Beach.” He tried another. The locked turned. “Had to be the one, only two others and they’re car keys.” He opened the door and went in. Walker followed, closing the door after himself.

“ Oh lord, look at this place, it’s been trashed,” Walker said as they crossed a tile entry way and entered the living room. Directly across from the entry way, behind a plush living room suite, was a large television. It had loose wires sticking out from behind

“ They took the DVD player,” Washington said. “TV must have been too big.”

“ Yeah.”

“ Look at this.” Washington pointed to a surge protector plugged into the wall by the desk. “Got his computer.”

The two men quickly went through the house, careful not to leave any prints. Every book in the library was open, pages torn out and thrown on the floor. Every drawer in the house was open and rummaged through. Clothes were ripped and strewn on the floor. Kitchen drawers had been overturned onto the tile, then broken on top of their crushed and destroyed contents.

“ This was destruction for destruction’s sake, not a search, not a robbery,” Washington said.

“ They took the computer and the DVD,” Walker said.

“ But that’s not what this was about. Someone doesn’t like Monday. They came to destroy his home and his things. They took the DVD and the computer as an afterthought.”

“ Or maybe they wanted to see what he had on his hard drive,” Walker said.

“ There is that,” Washington said.

“ Do we call this in?” Walker said.

“ We were never here, so how can we call it in?”

“ Yeah, yeah, I wasn’t thinking,” Walker said.

“ Okay, let’s get out of here.”

“ Don’t need to say that twice.” Walker turned and headed for the door. By the time Washington was on the front porch, Walker was in the car with the engine running. He’d be a good man for a bank job, Washington thought.

Walker whipped it into drive.

“ Easy,” Washington said, “leave slow, like we belong.”

Walker clenched his teeth and Washington knew he was fighting the temptation to stomp on the accelerator as he eased the car round the driveway.

“ Where do we go from here?” Walker asked as they turned off of El Jardin and back onto Anaheim Street.

“ Home.”

“ That’s it?”

“ For tonight. Tomorrow I’m going to call in sick. I’ll visit Monday’s condo, then I’ll talk to some of his friends.”

“ What about me?”

“ You can go to work as usual. I wouldn’t expect you to get anymore involved in this than you have. You’ve got your career to think of.”

“ Yeah and what about your career?”

“ Mine is over. I’ll never get off the street. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it.”

“ I’ll call in sick tomorrow,” Walker said through pursed lips.

“ You don’t have to do that.”

“ I said I was with you and I meant it. I’m with you.”

“ Okay, then go home, rest, enjoy your wife and kids. Pick me up at eight.”

“ Want me to take you back to the station?”

“ No, home’s closer. I’ll leave the car at the station. You can give me a ride to pick it up when I need it.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Walker said, “Tell me what happened to you.”

“ Why?”

“ I’m your partner. I want to know.”

“ It doesn’t concern you,” Washington said.

“ It sure does. Three years ago you were busted down from the suits. Since then you can’t keep a partner longer than six months. You’re moody, not very dependable and a lot of the time you’re just not any fun. If I’m going to stick my neck out with you, I’ve got a right to know.”

“ I said you didn’t have to come along.”

“ And I said I was with you, but I want to know. Why did you nearly kill that child molester?”

“ It wasn’t just the baby-raper,” Washington said, “that was just the end of a long, hard time for me.” He paused, “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“ Yeah.”

“ It started three years ago, the end of June, two weeks into my daughter’s summer vacation. She was fifteen. Did you know I was married?”

“ I heard you were separated.”

“ Yeah, we’re separated,” Washington said. Then he went on with his story. “It was one of those hot days, you know the kind, you sweat like there is no tomorrow, so I came home around noon to change. I’d been out in the field all morning and my clothes were wet as a rag.

“ Jane was at work and Glenna, that’s my daughter, was supposed to be spending the day with a girlfriend, but she wasn’t. She’d lied so she could spend the day with a boy. You know how girls can be.